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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064369">vitriol</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest'>oceansinmychest</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wentworth (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Antagonism, Bickering, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, F/F, Kissing, Language, One Shot, Purple Prose, Rivalry, Season/Series 05, Strangulation, Tension, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:08:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,542</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064369</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A skirmish in Doyle’s cell ensues, making the mere prospect of freedom to be naught but a distant, fleeting dream.</p><p>This AU explores a potential scene between Joan and Franky after Iman Farah’s abrupt demise.</p><p>[Rated M for violence &amp; language.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Franky Doyle/Joan Ferguson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>vitriol</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/alealejandroxx/gifts">alealejandroxx</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a gift for my good friend, Spense. You're a chill, down-to-earth person and I so enjoy our thoughts. May the enthusiasm for Wentworth never die!</p><p>In accordance with canon from Season 5, Joan utilizes some brute force and begins to choke Franky as a forewarning. Both women live, however. Been listening to a lot of darksynthwave which inspired this one.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Welcome to the Temple of the Fates. A demise lurks around every corner in this dog-eat-dog world. With as much tension as a knife fight, kindred spirits meet.</p><p>Drowning in those bulky, baggy sweats, Joan Ferguson comes off as some sort of arrogant, hulking monstrosity. Determined to declare her innocence, Franky Doyle attempted to remain in her civvies, as a reminder of the freedom she had and lost. Now, that malevolent, unfair hand of warped justice strikes.</p><p>Ferguson’s a bloody wraith biding her time and calculating her stalwart revenge. She makes such a stabbing entrance. It leaves Franky to wonder just how much of this is staged.</p><p>Engaged in petty parlor games, Joan forestalls her opponent by seizing all she holds dear on a dangling, kite-like thread. Joan sees well into the dark. Killing Doyle serves no purpose. Instead, a stroke of ye olde leather gloves disposes of the persistent pest proven to be Iman Farah. Her neck cracks pitifully before her body plummets. Just like that, there goes the evidence. The fluorescent lights paint a corpse in the cramped, stuffy room. That makeshift shiv, now snapped in two, takes an awful tumble. This isn’t some massacre of the innocents.</p><p>Murder becomes past-time.</p><p>As a prisoner, Joan’s actions seem calloused, a stark deviation from the controlled precision of the former Governor.</p><p>These women struggle with themselves. Franky will admit her faults, her flaws, and let her anger course through her. Ferguson, she sees, grapples to come to terms with the monster she’s become or perhaps, perhaps now, she recognizes that sickly, dark side and plays the part of villain to a tee.</p><p><em>Christ, that could’ve been me, </em>Franky thinks whilst repressing a shudder.</p><p>Her legs carry herself away from the scene of the crime lest she become another victim lost amidst all this moral confusion. On the run, Doyle flees from the past, the present, the uncertain future, and seeks solace in her cell. She doesn’t bother to close the door behind her. She wants to sob, Iman was her ticket, her way out, and now she’s back to the start. Her breathing becomes shallow, her vision blurry. With a frustrated cry, the back of her head touches clammy brick, her ponytail mussed up.</p><p>Somehow, the Grim Reaper always fucking finds her out. Joan sheathes her gloves. Tucks them away for safe-keeping to make this more personal, less detached. The plague slithers in. Cornering her in Franky’s private quarters, the spider weaves a meticulous web. Solitary confinement merely tangles those puppet strings further. All the neighboring cells are empty.</p><p>Face to feral face, fueled by vitriol, no bars separate them. They share a fucked-up history. Neither looked after their allies.</p><p>The kite pinned to the corkboard in her cell serves of a reminder of that last, desperate hope. Franky jerks her shoulders. Attempts to make herself bigger, better, when all she wants to do is fucking hide.</p><p>Since it’s lonely and dangerous cruising high above, only the best tend to remain at the top rung. A worthy opponent stands before the impervious Ferguson. Franky Doyle is neither pathetic nor immoral like Jess Warner who was capable of cruel infanticide.</p><p>Two caged predators circle the room. Constantly, Doyle fluctuates between who she used to be and who she (wants to be) is. The tough girl act ensues, all bravado pitted against Joan’s wintry personage.</p><p>“Fuck off, you psycho.”</p><p>Bristling, a glimmer of the old Doyle takes root. She bares her teeth. Not a single damn scrap will detour her from declaring her innocence.</p><p>Coal-rimmed eyes meet a black hole stare. The motley of tattoos is concealed by her worn, wrinkled sleeves. She could choke on the stale air, could suffocate on how Ferguson (fucked up Freak that she was) absolved Iman of all her crimes, could gag from the revelation that all she’s done has been in bloody vain.</p><p>“Oh, Francesca. Why, it appears your award-winning dish was of no use to you,” Joan taunts. Steeples her fingers before her midriff.</p><p>Ferguson lingers and looms like a threat, a shadow, something sinister that preys in the dark.</p><p>On different paths, they’ve been to Hell and back. On some profound, unspoken level, they understood one another.</p><p>A cross-examination in prison-issued uniform begins. So, these are the conditions of her parole. Doyle had run out of anger, streamlined on grief and a determination to find absolution. She was a shell of the cocksure young woman who first entered this tainted cellblock.</p><p>“Didn’t I tell you to fuck off?” She fires, cants her head, and exposes her vulnerable throat.</p><p>She tries not to let Ferguson cut her so deeply.</p><p>Hostile towards these brazen advances, Doyle offers her snide rebuttal, wishing for a shiv on hand. She won’t give in, she won’t put out. Surrender cements Doyle’s fate and tempts her to fall back into the comfortable, comforting prison grind.</p><p>This is the budding definition of a woman “too far gone.” Eyes up, eyes down, this is what a psycho with nothing to lose looks like. Ferguson clucks her tongue, clapping her hands twice in a row.</p><p>“Miss Bennett runs this place far better than you ever did,” Franky continues in an attempt to wound this force to be reckoned with.</p><p>Franky Doyle isn’t some heroine meant to put an end to the storybook villain. Doyle is whatever person she needs to be in order to survive.</p><p>“A tarnished reputation,” Joan concludes rather calmly despite the flare of her nostrils. The spasm of her right cheek. “Vera’s time flaunting those shiny, gold crowns wanes.”</p><p>She tuts, tsks, clicks her sharp, white teeth. She takes another step forward. With a knack for smelling weakness, she chooses to behave like a warrior, all archaic knowledge and raw hunger.</p><p>This stuffy cell resembles an inferno sucking them in. Each woman finishes a circle, their strides delicate and timed in contrast to the spontaneity of the moment. Franky’s shoulders threaten to brush her ear lobes, the portrait of an animal enacting on measures of self-defense. Trapped and confined, her joints lock into place; her muscles stiffen, her hands resemble open claws.</p><p>“It’s all powerplay to you. Gets you high, gets you off,” Doyle seethes. “Top Dog takes up too much fuckin’ space. Makes you mental.”</p><p>From peddling gear to legal advocacy, she claims to be so sure of herself. Yet, Doyle overplays her hand. Cornered in the room with waning physical space, an animal lashes out in the proverbial sense. She doesn’t fear the Devil. Offers some annihilating glare in return.</p><p>“It’s a shame you never accepted my original offer.” Words echo from the distant past. “I had high hopes for us.”</p><p>Joan tilts her head.</p><p>Watching, waiting.</p><p>She has always admired the girl’s confidence. Her... tenacity, if you will.</p><p>“I prefer action to words,” Franky chirps. “You’ve never scared me.”</p><p>“Ha.”</p><p>An intimate interrogation swathed and coated in teal continues its turbulent course.</p><p>“You pitted Bea against me.”</p><p>Resorting to old scare tactics back when the roles were reversed as opposed to an even pair of scales, the Infernal Governor prefers wit and intellect to brutish displays of strength. Once, Ferguson had focused on cutting the supply. Now, she seeks to ignite the fuse of a most combustible character.</p><p>“Mere accusations. I expected better from you. I admired you both, you know. A shame that you shrouded yourselves in disappointment.”</p><p>Joan speaks softly, delicately, as if the wind could carry her voice away. Not once does she blink in the span of this conversation. With a wave of her hand, she dismisses these probing insults. Instead, she prods Doyle in the chest. Drinks in the conflict painted across her face. Ambitious women are often proclaimed to be selfish. Yet, Joan can respect a self-assured woman, especially one of a similar vein.</p><p>“What have your precious legislative books taught you of sine qua non?”</p><p>Rife with tension, still butting heads, animosity ripples through Franky. For a split second, she considers entertaining Ferguson. Flaunting her knowledge acquired in this hellhole won’t get her anywhere with a master manipulator.</p><p>“You’ve got some compromised morals, Ferguson. I’ll give you that much.”</p><p>“Quid pro quo. For your own benefit, you cost countless women their immeasurable lives. You’ve a penchant for casting aside people as pawns, Francesca.”</p><p>Quoting statutes and clauses seems to be a lost bloody cause when every conniving word slithers and twists.</p><p>“At least I have a conscience,” she mutters with seething contempt.</p><p>“Hmm. Resilient as ever. Violence tempts you, Doyle. Drop that pathetic, little mask of yours.”</p><p>“You’ve got a nasty beast inside ya just itching to get out. You want blood.”</p><p>Sadomasochistic tendencies be damned. This woman is a danger to herself and others.</p><p>“Come now, Franky. You’re an ingenue. Find your way.”</p><p>She deflects all insults by feigning disinterest and plucking a pill from those gaudy sweats.</p><p>Struggle paramount, tempestuous force succumbs to leeway. Spite keeps her aloft. There’s an appreciation for the fire that burns inside, all admiration and paid respect. Yes, this is more than a squabble where snide remarks flow freely.</p><p>“Whatever became of your womanizing ways? Pursuing feminine wiles happened to be your forTe.”</p><p>Spoken with true confidence, every word is meant to strike a nerve.</p><p>She thinks of Bridget, she thinks of their time together, and how she came to ruin that. The heel of her palm collides with her throbbing temple. Franky grits her teeth. Clenches her jaw. For fuck’s sake, she just wants to be a kite set free. Instead of revealing her thoughts, she musters a haphazard shrug.</p><p>“Reckon I’m still looking after my best interests after all this time.”</p><p>Serpent knowledge flaunts her sick, slick, cunning hand. Intimidation seals the distance between them. The wicked Devil remembers those letters. Her infernal breath coasts along the shell of Franky’s ear.</p><p>“The poor cowardly lion fled, too preoccupied by her deteriorating marriage. Does your heart still beat for your dear Miss Westfall or do you fantasize about Erica Davidson with your eyes shut, mm? Pray tell, what would BridgeT think?”</p><p>Fuck, Ferguson has antagonized her over every fling, every affair, every budding romance - from her letters of concern addressed to Erica to her passionate courtship with Gidget.</p><p>Past conversations play through her mind. Franky recalls their first encounter. How childish she had been, so focused on her status behind prison bars. There once existed insincere smiles and pre-read letters. The memory of Erika Davidson still stings.</p><p>“How did it feel to kill Meg Jackson?”</p><p>“I’m not that person anymore,” Franky offers a weak defense, green eyes aflame.</p><p>“Ah, you consider yourself quite the self-righteous one. This metamorphosis you flaunt about is merely a ruse. You remain the same, scared little girl who throws herself at older woman in power.”</p><p>Joan’s flawless ponytail sways. She seals the distance between them.</p><p>Quarreling and banter reaches its peak. A torrent of destruction encourages the sweet temptation of giving in. Pricked by those thorny words, the old Franky - younger, more precarious and precocious - threatens to bubble to the surface. The fight never dies.</p><p>On remand, Doyle fights a losing battle. She has given up her clothes for teal while awaiting the impending death sentence. In the eyes, she harbors fugitive resentment. With murderous paws, Franky lunges.</p><p>Pride snaps like a twig, like a bone. How susceptible she is to fall so quickly. Doyle takes the bait. That quick-fire temper does her in. Up close, she reeks of fear and grief. Her innocence lies out of reach.</p><p>Now is the time for action. Social niceties dropped, a seemingly light-hearted shove against the chest attempts to push the Freak from her pedestal. Doyle rubberbands, her fist forming a knot in the collar of Ferguson’s oversized teal. She gives the fabric a rattling shake. For all her vigor, she showcases obstinacy to the bitter end.</p><p>“Impudent,” Joan snarls. “Lucky for you, I am still quite the generous soul.”</p><p>Ferguson narrows her eyes. She rises against her, akin to a sinister shadow on the wall that <em>never</em> vanishes. A stain that never comes clean. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. The revelation that you fucked up rears its ugly head.</p><p>“It was only a matter of time until you succumbed to your true nature,” Joan jeers, her thin lips twitching in a mild bout of agitation.</p><p>This is the behavior of old dogs. No new tricks to be learned though Franky’s determination suggests otherwise.</p><p>How satisfying it is to watch her fall: a shell of her former self, vouching against the probability of recidivism, now melded and wedded to the darkness. To vilify creates a sense of alienation, a great otherness, which defines clear, opposing lines.</p><p>Joan retaliates. With swift ease, she lifts the woman by the collar before her killing hand presses into the soft flesh beneath her chin.</p><p>Held by the jaw and dangled mid-air, Franky reacts with a look of sheer defiance, determined to wiggle out of this bleak predicament. A brutality lingers beneath the surface. A fire stirs in her gut and spreads ever lower. Oh, how they share such a fucked-up history.</p><p>“Just can’t keep your hands off me, hey?”</p><p>Struggling within that titanic grip, devoid of personal space, rehabilitation seemed wasted on Doyle. You cannot domesticate wild things.</p><p>“How does it feel to play right into my hands?” She whispers, damn near coos, harboring ill intentions and a sense of foreboding.</p><p>Lips hover far too close, the swift guillotine motion of a malevolent promise.</p><p>“Beyond the cavity search now, aren’t we?” Doyle challenges.</p><p>Exerting Herculean effort, her forearm braces against Franky’s gulping throat. She feels Doyle swallow beneath her sturdy grip. A ghostly grin comes in view. With a knee wedged in between, she parts Doyle’s thighs. Hitches her hold higher.</p><p>What a powerful opiate it is: to hold someone’s life in your hands. Playing God never looked so good.</p><p>There’s no taming wild things. Here lies the image of the transparent self.</p><p>Granting mercy, she relinquishes her hold. As a ruined castle, Joan still stands.</p><p>Although Joan lowers her, the ache in Franky’s throat remains. A swipe along the inside of her cheek procures the sharp, metallic taste of blood in her mouth. From nearly turning blue in the face, she had bitten down on her tongue. Her lungs still scream. She wets her lips and wipes away residual saliva. The hammering of her hopeful heart grows still.</p><p>What doesn’t kill certifiably leaves a scar.</p><p>“This seduction is fucked, even for you.”</p><p>With such a startling amount of tenderness, she caresses Doyle’s throat. At a leisurely pace, her scarred thumb traces the defiant jut of Doyle’s jaw. The ghost of a violent kiss follows, all teeth and lips and tongue and fiery perdition.</p><p>“Given our history, we’ve come to an understanding. Haven’t we?” Ferguson tilts her head and graces her with a half-smirk contorting her strong, proud features.</p><p>She watches the Devil drift out of her room, as smug as a cat who’s had her fill of cream, and feels nauseated. Franky switches on the tap in her torturous, little chamber and greedily swallows down the coppery water. Nothing removes the taste of Ferguson or her own blood that has grown cold.</p>
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